Besides the indispensable ingredients, such as surfactants and builders for the washing or cleaning process, washing and cleaning agents generally comprise further constituents that can be summarized by the term detergent auxiliaries and which include the different active substances such as foam regulators, graying inhibitors, bleaching agents, bleach activators and enzymes. These types of auxiliaries also include substances that are intended to prevent dyed textile fabrics acquiring a modified color impression when washed. This color impression modification of washed, i.e. cleaner textiles can be based firstly on the fact that fractions of dye are removed from the textile by the washing or cleaning process (“fading”), secondly that dyes detached from differently colored textiles can be deposited on the textile (“discoloration”). Discoloration can also occur with un-dyed laundry articles when these are washed together with colored laundry articles. In order to prevent these unwanted side effects of the soil removal from textiles during treatment with typical surfactant-containing aqueous systems, washing agents, in particular when they are so-called washing agents for colored textiles, intended for washing colored textiles, comprise active substances that prevent the removal of dyes from the textile or at least should avoid any removed dyes that are present in the wash liquor from being deposited on textiles. Many of the polymers that are typically used however, have such a high affinity to dyes that they strongly remove the dyes from the colored fibers, with the result that their use leads to color losses. The same also applies when cleaning hard surfaces.
It has now been surprisingly found that benzoxazine polymers afford unexpectedly high color transfer inhibition when they are used in washing or cleaning agents. The prevention of staining of white or even differently colored textiles by dyes that are washed out of textiles is particularly pronounced. It is conceivable that the benzoxazine polymers (described in more detail below) become attached to the textiles being washed and thereby on the one hand effectively prevent the removal of the dye from the textiles, and on the other hand repel the dye molecules that are already present in the wash liquor.
The subject matter of the invention are polymers, obtainable by polymerizing benzoxazine monomers, used to avoid the transfer of textile dyes from dyed textiles onto un-dyed or differently colored textiles when they are washed together in, in particular surfactant-containing aqueous solutions.
Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with this background of the invention.